The meaning of this verse in Mormon 4:81 is defined by the five verses that precede it and the one after it (Mormon 4:75–80 and 82). The five preceding verses speak about why God is a God of miracles. Verse 82 confirms that God IS a God of miracles. Verse 81 asks the question “if” God did miracles then (in the past), why would he stop being that kind of a God today? Then a challenging question: “and yet be an unchangeable Being?”

Who placed that comma there? Guess what—there was no punctuation ( . , ; ! : ?) in either Hebrew or Greek of the ancient Bible manuscripts! Neither was there any in the two handwritten manuscripts of the Book of Mormon. That comma was placed there by the typesetter at the Grandin publishing company.¹ It was a man—not the Holy Spirit. It was there in the first edition of the Book of Mormon in 1830, and it stayed there unnoticed in all RLDS and Restoration editions until we began to translate the Book of Mormon into other languages. In translating, every word must be evaluated and examined for its true meaning, and that includes how punctuation can effect word meaning.

Then, as the word “then” was being researched, it was discovered that the first meaning for the word “then,” in America’s oldest and probably most important dictionary (Webster’s 1828 Dictionary), was “at that time.” Four of the six meanings refer to “time,” “before” or “after.” The same is true for the Appleton’s New Cuyás English-Spanish and Spanish-English Dictionary (1966) translated “then” in the same way: “at that time.” Nearly all the meanings refer to time, before or after.

The second meaning of “then” when the comma is before it, reduces its meaning to a kind of conjunction between two phrases. It loses its impact which should be referring to the previous references that God is a God of miracles. Both of the (RLDS) Spanish versions have deleted the word “then” entirely, which weakens either interpretation of the verse. While the placement of this comma is not a doctrinal issue, if the comma is placed before the word “then,” it will put the emphasis on the concluding argument in the following verse.

However, if the comma is placed after the word “then,” it will cause the thought patterns of the reader to be pointed back at the positive evidences of the many miracles mentioned in the previous four verses, and will be more in agreement with the meaning of the word “then” in the language of the 1830 time period when the Book of Mormon was first translated.

Frank Frye, December 2023

Foot Notes
1: One of the rules in our Translation Guidelines is that “punctuation should not be considered Devine and may be adjusted according to the needs of the target language.”